Hands-On, Bluetrek Bluetooth Car Adapter: Slip Slidin’ Away

The Bluetrek Compact Classic Bluetooth hands-free cellphone car adapter is just a half-inch thick, works reasonably well clipped to your sun visor, and costs $60 street. But the two control buttons are tiny and the unit slides around when you try to use the controls because the clip appears sized for a sun visor thicker than any I’ve encountered. You may find it’s easier to use your cellphone to answer and end the calls.

The specs are fine for the Bluetrek Compact Classic: dual microphones, noise cancellation, up to 14 hours talk time and up to 30 days stand-by, recharging by a USB connector from your laptop or using an included car adapter. To power on, just flip the microphone arm. Installation is easy although you’ll need to keep the reference guide handy to remember how to do most anything other than the basic answer, hang up, and volume control. The Bluetrek Compact Classic rests quite flat against the sun visor, although the claimed 6mm thickness (0.25 inch) refers only to the speaker panel area. It’s more like a half inch thick otherwise, and 2 inches thick including the big visor mount clip.

The button closer to you (if you hook the unit around of the visor as in the picture above) controls volume up and down, while the back button is the answer-hang-up button. They’re about the size of the function keys on a netbook. To press them, you snake your hand around the antenna and apply leftward pressure. Unfortunately, the clip resists rearward pressure, and on four cars I used for testing, the unit slid away most every time I tried to adjust volume or answer the phone. The solution, which is not in the instruction manual, is to steer with your knees, pin the unit to the visor with your left hand, and stab the button with your right hand.

Bottom line: The Bluetrek Compact Classic has fine sound quality, passes through your phone’s voice prompts, and does all the other things you’d expect from an affordable Bluetooth module. It looks great, too, but style here gets in the way – literally – of functionality.